Denafrips Pontus II vs Venus II

I did not audition a Venus, but I do have a Denafrips stack that I adore (Pontus II DAC, Hades Pre-Amp, and Thallo Amp…..all true balanced with Morrow XLR cables driving a pair of Buchardt Audio S400 Mk II speakers. After all we’re broken in, I am in love with the music.

however, I have the Audiophile sickness and reached out to Alvin at Vinshine to see if he thought I could improve things even further. He suggested the Iris DDC feeding I2S to the Pontus, and pointed me to the British Audiophile video. So I have taken possession of said Iris, and will install in the next month after a couple of cables are broken in another 100 hours or so. I’m hoping there is a noticeable improvement can be made

When connecting the I2S from the DDC to either the pontus or the venus, are most of you using a USB or coaxial cable from your computer or streamer? Is one better than the other??

Sorry, not a coaxial from your computer 

@ozzy62 I described my setup in detail in this discussion already, so you can check that out if you want. The gist is that I’m using a dedicated network endpoint to stream via UPnP from a smartphone as a dedicated device for my streaming app(s). So, not a PC. I’ve used both USB and AES/EBU to connect to my reclocker, and in both cases it is a non-trivial difference and actually a profound upgrade over not using the reclocker. Reclocked with I2S to DAC sounds like a much higher tier DAC is in play. I’ve repeated this test many times over the last 9 months or so, and I always get a definite result. Alvin is exceptionally honest and modest about gear configurations and the products he sells, but in my case, even though I’m NOT using a PC and USB, he’s still greatly underselling it. Hope that helps!

@stevebohnii For my Bricasti M5, I’m using a pretty expensive AES/EBU cable and it clearly outperforms the USB connection from the same streamer to the same reclocker. The USB cable I have isn’t in the same price range, but I don’t plan to go back to USB even with a different cable because I don't think even a top tier USB cable could best my current config.

The review that you linked  has an interesting comment about how the nature of the sound from the Venus is different than that from the Pontus. The review describes the sound from the Venus as being more analytical while the sound from the Pontus is fuller. 

I'm thrilled with the sound that I'm getting from the Pontus. I recently listened to a dcs Bartok and my impressions are that I actually like the sound of the Pontus better for the acoustic music that I typically listen to. It has an organic feeling that I'm concerned that I might lose from going to the Venus. Of course, this is just speculation on my part,  but my main thought is that the Pontus is really an overachiever if you listen to a lot of acoustic instruments, voices, jazz and small ensemble classical music even rock. The one type of music that is less of a strength is perhaps orchestral music and opera since the perspective that Pontus provides of music seems more intimate than large-scale.